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White Dwarf To Return to Monthly Releases

White Dwarf, the Games Workshop magazine (for those that somehow didn’t know that), will be returning to a monthly release schedule starting in September. It’s also going to be a rather robust magazine, clocking in at 156 pages.

Those that want to get a subscription of this new format for the magazine can do so over on the Games Workshop website. There’s a special price if you sign up before August 14th. You’ll also get your magazines sent out a little earlier than the rest (and we know how gamers love to be the first ones to get things). If you’re already a subscriber, be sure to check your mail, as they’re sending out an exclusive offer to you.

Having been the managing editor for Ravage US during its run, the idea of having a magazine comes out weekly just boggles my mind, honestly. The constant pressure for articles, layout, and editing that had to go into that makes my head spin.

PRAY FOR MOJO

I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I meant weekly releases of their other products: miniatures, rulebooks, etc. I think their strict release policy has had a negative effect on the games.

Just in case you don’t remember, Games Workshop released Adeptus Mechanicus as two separate rulebooks: Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus. In my opinion, for a faction where the theme appears to be a bunch of mechanics who customize their robots and their own cyborg bodies extensively, they have extremely rigid rules, aligning exactly with the models available. They also feel incomplete: they rely on Knights for large models, they have no fliers, and the characters lack, well, character. Skitarii doesn’t even have HQ. To me they feel like they were designed to be released in bit-sized weekly chunks, suitable for the web site and White Dwarf. Age of Sigmar, as a whole, looks like a game meant to be released piecemeal taken to the extreme.

The older Games Workshop would have released a single large Adeptus Mechanicus codex, along with a bunch of model sets at once, though probably not everything in the rulebook at once. There would have been a bunch of stuff that you could only get onto the table by scratch-building. There would have been some time for them to be new toy and enjoy the spotlight, instead of instantly losing marketing force the next week.

And I really doubt we’ll see a change to not-weekly releases. Having something new for gamers to always buy is a business model that’s worked for them. And I can see the appeal for a gamer. You didn’t like this set of releases? Maybe something next week will strike your fancy. Instead of “well, I didn’t like what came out this month, and I didn’t like what came out last month, so it’s been a while since I’ve had a new toy.” Granted, things can go the other way with, “But I just bought something new last week! I can’t afford something new this week!” But that’d be a problem with “they released a whole new faction and I can only afford a small piece of it.” If there were any change to be made for GW’s releases, I’d like to see more varied sets from week to week. They still generally do a faction at a time for several weeks, then switch it up. But the problem with that, then, would be you might not be able to really tell where they’re headed next.

Suffice to say, no release schedule model works for every gamer all the time.

DB

You’re not kidding. When I heard they were going to a weekly release cycle, my first thought was to pity the brick and mortar stores who decided to stock it.

The second was to wonder how it would screw up the release schedule and quality control for codices, as the need for content for the magazine will be incredibly demanding.